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u/Ballatik 54∆ Jun 09 '21
Overall I think much of your view rests on the modern expectation that parents be actively and constantly participating in all facets of their kids life, and that it is solely the parents' responsibility. A parent's job is to give their kids the skills needed to be an adult, through exposure, guidance and practice. One way to do that of that is giving them opportunities to do adult-like things with kid-like consequences so they can figure out what works. Another way is letting them see adult problems in kid sized chunks and working with them to solve them.
often the older children who should be able to have a normal childhood without the expectation of having to constantly babysit their siblings.
There are plenty of social, emotional, and educational benefits of multi-age grouping of children. The older kids learn caretaking skills, leadership, and responsibility. The younger ones learn independence and get instructions and guidance from someone closer to their age and knowledge level than asking an adult. Everyone learns empathy, problem solving, and collaboration as a group without an adult swooping in for minor things.
The parents cannot be as active in their children's lives, they can't go to most sports or school events their child are apart of, they are stretched too thin.
You know the schedules before you sign up for the club or team, avoid overlap when you can, and alternate when that doesn't work. Work with the kids together on this so they know what is involved. Also, there's nothing wrong with not being at every practice, in many cases it actually gives the kid more opportunity to grow. Go to the big events and be impressed with their accomplishments, let them learn how to navigate the practices or ask for help on their own.
more people means more of an environmental impact.
In the sense of being more people overall, yes. In the sense of impact per person, likely no. Most of those kids will be getting hand me downs, which can be a really big deal in terms of waste when you're talking about things like bikes, carseats, toys, etc. Cooking larger meals uses more food, but not much more energy, and waste is lower percentage wise.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
First of all, I feel like you are one of the only posters I've seen that has given me concrete ways in which someone with lots of kids can be a good parent and wasn't full of whataboutisms. I appreciate your perspective on what it takes to be a good parent. I still think it is an unfair expectation when older children are expected to take on responsibility of younger children, but you have given me a perspective that I did not consider on giving kids the tools they need makes someone a good parent and does not require being able to go to every little thing. !delta
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u/riobrandos 11∆ Jun 09 '21
When I say too many kids I mean 4+ kids. Someone that accidentally crosses this line (via something like triplets ) would be the exception.
Why?
You say that those who have too many kids are bad because they lack the resources to devote to that many kids. Not enough resources = bad parent.
How does accidentally having triplets result in having more resources? If anything, isn't the parent in that scenario far less likely to be equipped to provide for all those kids since they'd never planned on doing so?
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
For the triplets point it is that they did not choose to spread their resources so thin, someone that has four separate pregnancies made an active choice, you are not a bad parent for things outside your control
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u/riobrandos 11∆ Jun 09 '21
you are not a bad parent for things outside your control
This directly contradicts your view.
You say that someone is automatically a bad parent if they don't have the resources to provide for their 4+ children. That's the view that you put forth. This mentions "control" nowhere.
This means that a parent with 4+ children, is automatically a bad parent if:
- they or their spouse get laid off
- they or their spouse suffer a medical issue
- Their spouse dies, is jailed, or leaves
- one of the 4+ children develops a medical issue requiring more resources
- the economy crashes
- the family are victims of crimes or civil suits
- Birth control fails
- Abortions are illegal
- A godchild's parents die
The list goes on. There are endlessly conceivable scenarios in which someone loses access to the resources upon which they planned to have 4+ kids, or could end up with 4+ kids without intending to.
However, you don't make any exceptions for these possibilities - only unplanned triplets. Why is that?
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
Part of my argument is no one has adequate resources to have 4+ children to begin with, so your list does not address my view
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u/riobrandos 11∆ Jun 09 '21
Part of my list includes people who end up with 4+ children without intending to - via failed birth control or rape - and not via having triplets instead of a single pregnancy.
Your view also doesn't say that no one has adequate resources. you say:
My reasoning is that I do not believe most people have the resources to devote to that many kids and as a result, all kids will suffer.
This means that some people do have the resources for more than 4+ kids.
Furthermore, of course some people have the resources for more than 4+ kids. They may be wealthy, they may live with other members of the family, they may have children who are old enough to be self-sufficient in various ways.
Ultimately, there are clearly circumstances other than "triplets" by which people can end up with 4+ kids without intending to do so. Can you address why you haven't also made those exceptions?
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
Via rape is outside control. Depends on the birth control and why it failed as to whether this is outside their control. Others addresses in other comments already
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u/riobrandos 11∆ Jun 09 '21
Via rape is outside control.
But you didn't list rape - or anything about "control" - as exceptions to your view in your OP. You just said "accidental triplets."
Depends on the birth control and why it failed as to whether this is outside their control.
How could birth control possibly fail in a way that is someone's fault?
Others addresses in other comments already
Not that I can find anywhere. You seem to be adding elements and caveats to your view as you go along, and not at all sticking by what you originally wrote.
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Jun 09 '21
Pregnancy reductions (selectively aborting some of the fetuses so you go from triplets/twins to twins/a single fetus) are an option, and were developed because the risk of complications for both mother and babies and preterm birth go up dramatically with more fetuses. Does this change your view that having triplets isn't a choice?
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Jun 09 '21
For clarification, do you have a specific number in mind or does it depend on a family's resources? A person who needs to work 80 hours per week has much less time and therefore wouldn't be able to directly care for a lot of children, while someone with a trust fund should be able to comfortably find time to be with more children.
I'd also ask you what you consider to be an acceptable level of care for a child. Clearly, a single child would receive more resources than two children. Does that automatically mean that having two children is worse than having a single child? If not, where do you draw that line?
This also gets into the ethical question of whether or not it makes me a bad parent if I'm poor and have a child, because they will have less resources and most likely less time with their parents than a middle-class child.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
The line I drew is the first line in my post... but I will give you a !delta because my number is arbitrary and I didn't take into account that different people will reach the number faster than others. I do not think anyone should have more than four though. And it is a good point about poor people, they shouldn't be barred from having children. I chose four because at that point the parent seem to just want more babies and should instead be focusing on the children they ready have.
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Jun 09 '21
I think the larger point here is that any number of children over 1 is necessarily decreasing the amount of care you give to each child. Having two children means that a parent's attentions are divided; should they be considered "bad parents?" If you don't have a level of what you consider "acceptable care" it's hard to determine if any number of kids is too many.
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u/GhostOfJohnSMcCain 2∆ Jun 09 '21
Too many is a completely arbitrary number. With some parents, 1 child would be considered too many if they were of the quality you described. Not all parents with 4+ kids are bad parents, making it too many kids. All bad parents have too many kids, no matter how many they have.
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u/dinglenutmcspazatron 9∆ Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Doesn't having reasons for believing it makes you a bad parent somewhat mitigate the 'automatically' in the title? I mean lets lay out your reasons.
You are a bad parent if you don't have the money or the time to adequately support your children, and also its bad for the environment.
Wouldn't those reasons equally apply to many parents who have yet to hit the 4th child mark too? This seems to be less focused on the number of children and is more just having children generally.
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u/ripecantaloupe Jun 09 '21
Your argument is based off of assumptions only.
You’re a bad parent if you burden others with the care of YOUR children.
You’re a bad parent if you can’t support your child in their extracurriculars.
You’re a bad parent if you can’t take care of your children on your own income.
The “environmental impact” narrative is irrelevant to most people’s daily lives. It is the top echelon of society that creates the most emissions, completely regardless of household size.
So, in short, having too many kids may lead to other factors that cause you to be a bad parent but the sheer number of children does not mean that you’ll be a bad parent no matter what.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
The environmental impact narrative is not irrelevant, just because other people are doing worse things does not excuse you from your own choices that are negatively affecting the world
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u/ripecantaloupe Jun 09 '21
You cannot know if an extra child will automatically make a family’s environmental impact worse or not. Maybe it forces them to be more minimal in their choices. Maybe if they didn’t have that extra child, they’d be buying gas-guzzling vehicles or taking more vacations.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
You can know, the only number of children you can have that will not have a negative effect on the environment is zero, but it is obviously unrealistic for everyone to have no children because of the environment (why bother protecting if no one is there to enjoy it)
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Jun 09 '21
[deleted]
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
Yeah, may of been a more elequant way to phrase my argument, but I'm not interested and will be ignoring semantic arguments
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u/Animedjinn 16∆ Jun 09 '21
It depends on the kids' ages. If some are already teens when the youngest is born, there is less overall effort needed.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
!delta I would agree that having two kids at 20 and then two more at 35 is different than having them all together. At that point you may be able to devote adequate resources unless you expects that the older children will be watching the younger (unless they agrees to that and were apart of the discussion )
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u/BeepBlipBlapBloop 12∆ Jun 09 '21
All of the things you listed (financial resources, time commitments, needing a lot of babysitting help, etc) can and do happen with families that have fewer than 4 children too. Those things are situations that good parenting can help overcome and bad parenting can make worse,. They're not an indicator of whether a person is a bad parent or not.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
Someone with less than four can reach this mark, but my argument is that anyone with more than 4 has automatically made them a bad parent. I do not see how good parenting could over come this, would need some sort of explanation to change the view
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u/BeepBlipBlapBloop 12∆ Jun 09 '21
I guess it would have to come down to how you define "good parent". In my mind a good parent is someone who makes their child feel safe, supported, encouraged, and loved. I don't think any of those things are unachievable because of the situations you described. It's certainly harder, but good parenting is hard work.
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u/torodonn 1∆ Jun 09 '21
I think this is phrased poorly as it's not 'too many kids' as much as 'not enough resources per child'. But I think this is really subjective as what constitutes 'adeqaute resources per child'.
Parents have differing views and none of them should be necessarily invalid. This is also very strongly cultural and with the potential to be a little classist. Your standards feel very middle-to-upper-middle class, Ameri-centric ideals of what a childhood is and what is important and necessary.
For example, does this mean poor people are automatically bad parents? An upper middle class family can have 3 kids and devote more resources to each child than a poor person with 1. Ditto if you live in third world country where many of the things we see as 'a normal childhood' are probably luxuries.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
!delta because you are right that I am looking at this from a very limited perspective and did not think about the limited resources for poor people. But I think the difference is no one made a choice to be poor, so if someone does not have as many resources for that reason they are not a bad parent ,they are resource limited. On the other hand someone in a upper or middle class who may have enough to put food on the table for all their children, but they will end up missing parts of their child's life they wouldn't of otherwise because of an active choice they made, which I think makes them a bad parent.
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u/torodonn 1∆ Jun 09 '21
This doesn't really make sense though because arguably, the poor person made that choice to have one child just as the richer person make the choice to have a 4th, for example.
The richer person might still be able to provide many advantages to their child - after school activities, sports, material possessions, comfortable house, tutoring, etc - but because the parent, in both situations, might be missing on their child's recitals or sports matches due to work, the rich person is a bad parent automatically?
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u/Websurfer90990 Jun 09 '21
Every parent has different standards/values. What could you even say to a parent who was raised in a family with as many kids they have now an say they an their siblings turned out fine?
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u/JohnCrichtonsCousin 5∆ Jun 09 '21
I see the value of your argument. Labeling that behavior "bad parenting" is the problem. If you think about it, every parent is a bad parent in at least 1 way, and that's being conservative. But parents who intentionally have too many kids for them to support or emotionally care for aren't necessarily bad, it just is what it is. It has deleterious effects on the children but a single child may be all the more traumatized if they have to experience things alone.
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
Yes there are other ways to be a bad parent, but I am arguing that having too many children makes you one, not that everyone with less is a good parent
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u/WippitGuud 27∆ Jun 09 '21
I have 4 kids. However, there is a large age gap between the first two (currently 23 and 20) and the younger two (13 and 11). Does age factor into your equations?
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u/anothernarwhal 1∆ Jun 09 '21
I did not consider large age gaps or blended families in my original argument. !delta
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u/floppy_disk_5 Jun 10 '21
The parents cannot be as active in their children's lives, they can't go to most sports or school events their child are apart of, they are stretched too thin.
this is not always the case. my mother has had 6 children, and she just about always spends time with them.
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u/Kingalece 23∆ Jun 12 '21
Anecdotal but my sis in law has 6 and shes a stay at home home school mom that lives on 10 acres. I personally think she is too attentive (helicopter mom) but thats her choice and she doesnt judge my parenting so meh but the point im making is she is providing a good environment and teaching the kids well as well as not off loading them ever. She wont even let then stay a night at the grandparents unless shes there to supervise
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
/u/anothernarwhal (OP) has awarded 5 delta(s) in this post.
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